Remarks on puerperal fever : before the New York Academy of Medicine, October 6, 1858 / by Fordyce Barker and A.K. Gardner.
- Benjamin Fordyce Barker
- Date:
- 1858
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Remarks on puerperal fever : before the New York Academy of Medicine, October 6, 1858 / by Fordyce Barker and A.K. Gardner. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![disease. And it seems to me that there is some danger of our giving] undue prominence to these autopsic lesions. We might as well seek to find out the cause of the fire, in a minute chemical and microscop&l cal examination of the ashes of a conflagration, as rely upon tlqH appearances found after death, to determine the character of a di4 ease which results from the absorption of a morbid poison. But m this such a disease ? That is the grand question ; and it can answered correctly, not by studying the disease from one staud-poittj alone, but by a comprehensive examination of all that haS been foun| out as to its phenomena and laws, in different epidemics and variedl localities, as recorded by difi'erent observers. Naturally enough, the opinions, especially the scientific opinions of men, have for a basig what they have seen and observed for themselves, and such opinions justly carry with them the most weight. Hence, in puerperal fever*, we have had the finest minds and the brightest geniuses in medicine, as exponents of exclusive, special, restrictive views as to its patho^ ogy and its therapeutics, their ideas resting entirely on the peculiar type of the disease which they have seen for themselves. The char| acter of this disease, bringing death and desolation into those familleffl which have just exulted in the joy and gladness of a new birth, thg medium of infection being sometimes the physician, whose steps ain regarded, and should ever prove as those of a ministering angel (m comfort and hope ; its sudden onslaught, its speedy results, and itfl terrible fatality, all have combined to bring out the highest talent^] where talent has before lain dormant in the ordinary routine of praog tice, and has contributed to give us a richer literature on this sal^j ject, than is to be found of any other disease. This statement wiM surprise some whose attention has not been specially called to tln| subject, but I believe it will bear close scrutiny. In this day of pr^ gressive medicine, in our anxiety to bring it up to the perfection of physical science, it is possible that in our search after what is new] and original, we may overlook what is old and proven, and thus thw erroneous deductions may be drawn from the limited experience and observation of a few, which would have been corrected, had advan- tage been taken of the enlarged experience of the many. We hart ■ greatly the advantage of our predecessors in studying this disease With all the acumen, and careful observation, and extensive experience of Gordon, and Armstrong, and Collins, and Gooch, and Fergnscn, they had but a limited knowledge of its pathology and therapenticfl, compared with what we may have, who can bring together the aggre- gate results of all their labors, without assuming to place ourselves](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22323375_0006.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
